The promised land awaits, but we can't get there from here

The promised-land is close, but you can’t get there from here.

It is so close that you can almost see it breathe and yet while the vision may be clear it is, in fact, unreachable.

Victoria's Premier,
Denis Napthine.

The promised-land is exactly that, promised. You work, you save, you deal and you even make promises, but still the destination seems as distant as ever.

With your shoulder to the wheel, with your back bent and your mind tuned to the task, you draw a little closer to your goal, but then the illusion simply slips away.

The promised-land glistens on the horizon, it shines with the assurance of new day, a day so glorious that the sun never seems to set and if you listen to the corporate boosters, life just keep getting better.

Humanity is locked in something of an ideological arm wrestle with some, for whom life is getting better, declaring the promised land has arrived, while others are as equally convinced that the promise is not only hollow, rather a fallacy, an illusion manufactured by the rich minority for their benefit, paid for the majority.

The promised-land can be seen as an allegory of a gated community – you can see it, you know it is there, you see many coming and going, but the gates remain forever closed to those without the necessary social connections and, even more importantly, a handsome bank balance.

Events of the past week have blunted budding optimism with Tony Abbott declaring that, as Australia’s Prime Minister he would disband our Climate Commission, effectively sacking the head of the organization and former Australian of the Year, Tim Flannery.

The promised-land as seen by Abbott is really the stone-age for he would also repeal Australian’s only true effort to combat our carbon dioxide emissions, the misnamed “carbon tax”.

His Victorian Coalition Party compatriot and Premier, Denis Napthine, also stands with those who misunderstand world events; those seemingly unable to understand that tomorrow will be different in every sense from today and his government is spending millions researching a container port will be ultimately as useful as an umbrella in a tornado.

The promised-land must be somewhere else for many in the world are behaving in a manner unbecoming a child; they glare at each other, belligerently brandishing nuclear weapons and declaring their use will reveal a better world.

There must be parallel universes for this one, it seems, has been taken over by aliens, those who put profit and property ahead of people, and strangers who see the good life as amounting to little more than accumulation and subjugation of the other.

The promised-land awaits but that is what it will remain until those in “this land” understand access rests with inclusivity, fairness, collaboration and sharing.

We need thinking that will break ranks

Human imagination is faltering.

Albert Einstein became
famous for his curiousity.

Such an observation will undoubtedly draw criticism from many quarters, but in nearly every case that censure would come from those who are among the few, the measured minority, who enjoy the benefits of man’s imaginative innovations.
Many of the billions that tread the earth live each day on what most Australians consider small change and some live in countries of which they know not and nor do they have any idea what exists beyond a day’s walk.
Humankind has travelled on the back of imagination for millennia and sometimes that has been good and at other times, not so good. 
The 20^th century was alive with imaginative developments and that 100 years of innovative momentum has continued into the 21^st century with something new appearing on the human landscape nearly every other day.
What we have seen, though, has been somewhat linear, an almost expected, development of what already existed.
What we haven’t seen, a further example of the paucity of imagination, are ideas that have truly broken ranks; ideas that have sent humanity hurtling off on a refreshingly new journey.
Technologically the advances have been many, especially in the world of electronics, and while they have made much about life easier and more convenient, whether or not they have made life better is an open question and so any answer is subjective.
Danger lurks everywhere for even commonly used and understood terms such as “better” are subject to corruption and misunderstanding as one fellow’s better paradise is another’s hell.
Let’s agree that better is qualitative covering contentment and happiness rather than the quantitative measure of the accumulative life upon which success in the modern life is computed.
Abiding by that agreement we face our first challenge in stepping beyond contemporary understandings of success and launch ourselves into a whole new paradigm in which a better life is about kindness, sharing and collaboration; a way of living that, despite the protestations of our pedagogical politicians and corporations, is the antithesis of what exists.
Having freed ourselves from the straight jacket of existing thinking, we need to unleash our imaginations to consider iconoclastic utopias as opposed to their blueprint counterparts that are intimately, and generally, restrictive in every sense – they are totalitarianism by another name.
The stereotypical understanding is that most utopias are the foundation of tyranny or despotism, but we should note that none of the anger, violence and distrust the soak these ideologies are evident, in any way, in the qualities of genuine utopian thinking.
Nor will you find evidence of the manners that prevail in a civilized society in any form of government that has tyrannical traits and subsequently is devoid of kindliness, honesty and equality.